Asus ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2080Ti OC Review

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With reviews of the Founder’s Editions (FE) of both the RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti out of the way, I can now turn my gaze towards the cards people are really interested in; those from Nvidia's partners. The first GPU I was able to get my hands on was the Zotac RTX 2080 Ti AMP, and it was indeed impressive, but now I'm examining the Asus ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2080Ti OC.

Asus has announced a three models for the RTX 2080Ti, including lower-end dual-fan model, and one with a "blower style" cooler, but this model is the company's flagship offering, and is a factory overclocked three-fan beast. This huge card will take up a large piece of real estate in any rig, and at $1,249 it'll also take a bite out of your hardware budget, assuming you can even order one (spoiler alert: you can't).

Asus RTX 2080Ti OC – Design and Features

As a Turing graphics card with the RTX label, this GPU introduces two new technological advances in the form of real-time ray tracing for more realistic lighting and Deep Learning Super Sampling, or DLSS. Ray tracing is the kind of feature gamers and developers have wanted to see for a very long time, but the computational power required from a GPU just wasn’t possible. RTX will theoretically change that, but unfortunately we’re still waiting to see those effects running in actual games, outside of video demos. As of this writing, Microsoft has updated Windows 10 for ray tracing compatibility, and it shouldn’t be long until we see AAA titles like Shadow of the Tomb Raider adding the feature in a future update. Battlefield 5 is also onboard with both new technologies, and it looked pretty sweet at Gamescom.

Exit Theatre Mode

Nvidia is also hoping game developers will jump on the DLSS train, which is a more effective form of anti-aliasing. Nvidia loads games into a neural network and an artificial intelligence analyzes frames to create more perfect images without extra anti-aliasing. In essence, DLSS could replace the hardware intensive requirements of anti-aliasing by allowing the Turing GPU’s Tensor cores to do the heavy lifting. Again, DLSS isn't available in a shipped game at this point, so it still remains to be seen how this tech will play out.

Much like the Zotac RTX 2080 Ti AMP, the Asus ROG Strix 2080Ti OC is a behemoth of a graphics card. This version takes up 2.7 PCIe slots, meaning you’re going to have to essentially say goodbye to three PCIe slots on your motherboard to install this big boy. With a 12-inch length, the Asus 2080Ti is nearly two inches longer than Nvidia’s FE card, but that’s not too surprising, given the addition of a third fan (compared to two on the FE card). It's roughly the same length as the Zotac version, but notably thicker.

As is the case with other Asus ROG products, this card offers extensive RGB lighting which can be controlled via software. The ROG logo is illuminated, as are certain areas under the chassis which give off a really nice glow through the heatsink. Of the three RTX 2080 Ti cards I’ve looked at, the Asus ROG Strix model is far and away the most attractive in regards to lighting. And of course, you can sync the lighting with other compatible Asus hardware. Oddly this GPU is missing the fan headers on the PCB that the ROG Strix GTX 1080 Ti had, which let you sync your case fans to the GPU's temperature. An odd omission for a flagship GPU.

Asus ROG Strix RTX 2080TI OC – Specs

The Asus ROG Strix RTX 2080Ti OC and its TU102 GPU features 4,352 CUDA cores, a 14Gbps memory clock, 11GB of GDDR6 memory, and a factory overclocked 1665MHz boost clock. The overclock is 30MHz above the factory overclock on the Founder’s Edition, but the same as the Zotac 2080 Ti AMP. It’s important to note you’ll need the Asus GPU Tweak II software to put the card in OC mode, however. The Turing GPU on-board features a crazy 18.2 billion transistors in addition to 68 RT cores (powering ray tracing) and 544 Tensor cores (to handle the DLSS calculations).

On the back of the Asus ROG Strix 2080 Ti OC, there's two DisplayPort 1.4 ports, two HDMI 2.0b ports, as well as a USB Type-C port for hooking up your VR headset. You can also run this monster in SLI, on the chance you have the dough for not just one, but two $1,250 graphics cards. Power is handled by two eight-pin connectors, and the thermal design power —the average power consumption when running applications—is set at 260w, which is the same as the Founder’s Edition.

Asus ROG Strix RTX 2080TI OC – Software

I checked out the latest version of the Asus GPU Tweak II software to see how it performed with the ROG Strix RTX 2080 Ti OC. Hardware monitoring is available and is contained to a small window that automatically seats itself next to the main interface. Within the menu, you can select three different modes for the card: OC mode, which focuses on performance and obviously sets the previously mentioned 1665 MHz boost clock; gaming mode, which sets the boost clock to 1650MHz and offers an even blend of performance and fan speed; and silent mode, which decreases the clock to 1635MHz and uses slower fan speeds.

All of the modes are easy to understand, but I don’t see much need for the gaming or silent options. Namely, because even in OC mode, the ROG Strix 2080 Ti is a very, very quiet card. And if I can have performance and quiet fans, who really needs the other two modes? Mileage may vary, of course, with a different GPU I suppose.

Missing from GPU Tweak, however, is any form of automatic overclocking scanner—which has been added to other Nvidia compatible software like EVGA Precision and even Zotac’s (admittedly not great) Firestorm software. It’s a weird omission, but honestly, I prefer using sliders manually anyway and those are available under an Advanced Mode option in the software.

Unfortunately, RGB lighting settings require a second software program; Asus Aura. It’s annoying that functionality isn't just added to GPU Tweak. Lighting options offer four different effects, including static, breathing, strobing, and color cycle. You can also have the lights change color along with music or GPU temp, which is kind of fun to watch. You can also select colors and brightness with a handy wheel.

Asus ROG Strix RTX 2080TI OC – Benchmarks

I put the Asus ROG Strix RTX 2080 Ti OC through its paces in the same test bench I used to test all of the other Turing cards, but I did increase the system memory from 8GB to 16GB due to reader outcry. After I was done testing the Asus card I re-tested the Zotac GPU so I could have a direct comparison, but I have yet to re-test the other GPUs (2080 Ti Founder's Edition, GTX 1080 Ti, etc). so those numbers are excluded. If you want to see them from the previous review, head on over to the Zotac review.

The IGN test rig includes a Skylake Core i7-7700K CPU, 16GB of DDR4 memory, an Asus Z270 Prime motherboard, an Intel SSD, and an EVGA PSU. I tested this card (and the Zotac) at 3840 x 2160, 2560 x 1440, and 1920 x 1080 resolutions with all games and benchmarks set to their highest graphical settings, but without anti-aliasing enabled.

Overall the Asus card traded blows with the Zotac card, with neither of them being totally dominant across all three resolutions. Even in certain games where one cards was "faster" it was by a negligible amount, so overall I'd say both cards' performance is roughly equal. This isn't too much of a surprise given they are both as long as a 12" sub, with triple-fan cooling and premium components, with the same clock speeds. Both the Asus and Zotac were also faster than Founder's Edition card.

The attention to cooling by Asus with this card has paid off, as well. Under a 20 minute load test, the ROG Strix 2080 Ti never passed 65 degrees Celsius. That’s the same maximum temp I saw with the Zotac 2080 Ti AMP, but where the Zotac card was impressively quiet, this Asus card is just a whisper in the background. It’s deceptively quiet—as in it's hard to even tell it’s even running quiet.

Asus ROG Strix RTX 2080TI OC – Overclocking

As previously mentioned, the stated boost clock on the Asus ROG Strix 2080Ti OC is 1665MHz in OC mode. That’s 120Mhz over Nvidia’s reference spec for this GPU, which is obviously a decent factory overclock. But when it comes to a shiny new graphics card, who doesn’t want to spend some time seeing if they can squeeze out just a little more performance? Once I had the Asus ROG Strix 2080Ti running under load and humming along, I used GPU Tweak II and its advanced settings to see how far I could push this monster.

Using Heaven 4.0, I began with the card at its 1665MHz boost clock and nudged the GPU clock offset little by little. To my amazement, this card was more than happy to go along for the ride. Moving the clock slider very near to its max point, I was able to push this card to an awesome 2175MHz overclock. Going beyond this clock speed would cause the benchmark to crash.

At that point, I attempted to increase voltage to the card by small increments, but even at a 10% voltage boost, the GPU clock offset couldn’t go higher without crashing. All the while, the Asus 2080 Ti OC never got warmer than 65 degrees. Those are some insane numbers, and it bears repeating that this card was super quiet through it all.

Purchasing Guide

The Asus ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2080Ti OC has an MSRP of $1,249, and unfortunately is not available for sale as of press time (October 11th). However, the dual-fan and blower versions can be found online, but they are out of stock everywhere or suffering from insanely inflated pricing.

The Verdict

The Asus ROG Strix RTX 2080 Ti OC is generally on par with the other 2080 Ti partner card I previously reviewed from Zotac. But the Asus version has better lighting, and overclocked higher too, so it gets the nod, just barely. Unfortunately, it also costs more than most people spend on an entire rig (if you could buy one), and things like ray tracing and DLSS remain unproven. But those are, quite frankly, the only faults in what is easily one of the best graphics cards available.

Amazing

The Asus card is everything you could want in a GPU; powerful, quiet, and good looking. Shame you can't buy it (yet).